Delusions about performance-bred registries

It highlights a false claim that is often promoted in border collie circles: That border collies are bred just like Alaskan huskies. They just breed them for performance, pedigree doesn’t matter.

The Alaskan husky is what Chris calls an “ad hoc” breed. It’s really a type of dog that has developed for sled dog racing, and in order to do so, the sled dog racers have crossed in different things.

There are two types of racer with sled dogs, and both have different strains and breeding systems. Endurance races require dogs with a lot more Siberian husky, malamute, and even Anatolian shepherd ancestry, while sprint races incorporate things like pointer or saluki bloodlines.

According to the 2010 study Chris quotes, sprint sled dogs are much more outcrossed than the endurance dog, but both are more genetically diverse than purebred dogs, including border collies.

Chris goes on to quote a member of the American Border Collie Association who claims that the only difference between border collies and Alaskan huskies in how they are bred is that border collies have a registry.

Chris explains:

Border Collies aren’t like either of the Sled Dog sub-populations. Even though the Distance [endurance]dogs have higher F(IS) values, they are still highly heterozygous and have a greater abundance of allele diversity. In other words, Distance dogs are being pushed genetically towards homozygosity faster than the Border Collie is being pushed, but the Distance dogs are starting from a more diverse and less inbred position.

The Sprint dogs not only have a greater abundance of allele diversity and a greater level of Observed Heterozygosity, they are also being actively and continually outcrossed. This simply isn’t the case with Border Collies.

Border Collies have a virtually closed breeding pool of dogs that go back to a few hundred founding dogs a century ago. Their effective gene pool is now equivalent to the genome of only 8 dogs. The number and impact of new blood (typically in the form of Registration on Merit) is negligible. The contribution of other breeds (like Kelpie and Bearded Collie) is highly limited, mostly ancient (a century ago), and not ongoing. The last documented non-Border Collie to enter the gene pool is almost 30 years ago with one Bearded Collie (Turnbull’s Blue) ROM’d within the ISDS.

The last time a Husky was improved with fresh blood was probably yesterday.

The truth is border collies are more like performance-bred bird dogs.

A fairer comparison is that border collies are more like Llewellin setters.

A Llewellin setter, for those of you not in North America, is a setter that is bred solely for hunting and trial work.

There is some debate in dog circles about whether to call these dogs a strain of English setter or to call them their own distinct breed.

They are much smaller than typical show strain English setters, though they do derive from that stock.

They have been bred solely for performance for decade after decade. They are very good at what they do.

But their registry is closed. I don’t think there is any significant gene flow between Llewellins and other English setters, though I could be wrong.

Llewellins are a working dog, but they are being bred just like any other purebred. It’s just they are being selected for performance only.

And that’s exactly what’s going on with border collies.

If border collies were that much like Alaskan huskies, you’d see extreme type divergence . Honestly, in border collies, you see about as much variation as one sees in Labrador retrievers. There are big ones and little ones, but they are all variations on the same theme.

What I find interesting about Llewellins and border colies is how hard it is to find out about what health problems exist in both breeds.

Google doesn’t help– and is contradictory.

The truth is that in both of these performance breeds there is a culture that just assumes the dogs are fine because they are worked, but compared to fancy breeds, there isn’t as much of desire or effort to find out what health problems actually exist.

And one way to deny it is to say that border collies are just like Alaskan huskies, then provide no evidence.

The truth is that whenever any organism with an evolutionary history of low inbreeding tolerance is bred in system that rewards greater homozygosity and tighter gene pools, health problems are just that much more likely to occur.

It matters not that the animals are worked and trialed and that people write romantic novels about them.

Performance bred dogs that are in these sorts of registries are ultimately in the same boat as the show dogs.

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I think the fundamental difference between sheepdog trails and dog-sled racing is that there is tons of money in dog-sled racing and “husky safaris”. So, when money is on the line, one is more likely to outcross for better performance.

The performance of border collies at “sport” is not being questioned, it’s the amount of inbreeding.

Money (or other similarly potent currency such as pride) is on the line with ALL dog breeding programs. The difference is that the crowds who come to cheer on dog sled teams don’t care if they look uniform in type or what their pedigree says, so the money on the line is truly all about performance. Note that this doesn’t make sled dog breeders somehow morally superior to other dog breeders – there are plenty of unscrupulous and downright horrible acts that occur at husky breeding outfits. Healthier and less-inbred dogs are a side effect, not a goal.

“Working” border collies are also bred for performance, but there is also a lot of money and pride on the line when it comes to pedigree and looks (though they refuse to admit it, I doubt many of them would be happy if a Rotty was doing well at herding trials) (as Christopher has pointed out many times – look at the popular sire effect in sporting BC’s). The whole point is that inbreeding, all by itself, no matter how “good” your intentions are, is bad for dogs.

Most dog-breeders I know of lose more money than they actually gain from participating in dog-sports, field trials or herding trials. Mushing and racing are the only ones I know of which the handlers or breeders actually make a profit.

I agree that healthier dogs is just a side-effect. When people become truly competitive without any regulations, such as throughbred registry, racing Greyhound registry or ISDS registry, then people are willing to try any crosses they could find to get a better results. We see this with Eurohounds, Border-Jacks (flyball), Border-Staffies (frisbee). Although the latter two are not because of profit.

Agree with most of this, but aren’t you ignoring the fact that the mere act of trialing (or or even preparing to trial) these perfomance-bred dogs exposes many physical and mental faults that perpetuate for generations in show dogs (luxating patellas, MVD, airway obstruction, dullness, agression etc.)

Of course there are major issues like cancer that only become apparent after a trial dog has campainged for many seasons and has been bred extensively, but its a lot more useful evaluation, than running in a circle on a leash and standing for inspection.

“Gene flow” is of course ideal, but even dogs in a closed registry benefit greatly when they are evaluated based on some working metric. Do you think for a second that champion Llewellin would ever be the same phsical and mental condition of a champion Cavalier?

Vain and competivie people will always try to fix traits for consistency at the expense of genetic diversity, but when they only focus on the most superficial aspects of an animal, you get “champions” that must lay on a bag of ice after running 100 yds on a leash indoors.

Makes my point exactly.. EIC manifests itself at an average of 14 months. Typically really vigorous exercise (like trialing or training for a trial) triggers it (it takes more than running in a circle once at a dog show). No one is going to pour thousands of dollars into a trial Lab with EIC, nor would any trialer choose to breed from it. However, its very conceivalbe that a show dog person would campaign and breed an otherwise handsome dog with EIC.

While the gene and other hereditary issues will always be there, since symtomatic trial dogs rearely train, compete, or breed, market forces and competition should help reduce the incidence. Dog shows woudnt be helpful, particularly if an affected dog won a lot.

My read is they’ve actually gone the other way, cutting out carriers as well. No one wants a carrier, either because they don’t know how genetics works or because it makes the dog’s potential offspring worth less.

But all living things have deleterious mutations somewhere. They usually are inherited by a recessive or semi-recessive allele or alleles. If one destroys genetic diversity within a population, then your chances of producing unhealthy animals is virtually guaranteed.

It doesn’t matter what you’re doing.

And there are working dog people, mainly in pit bulls, who inbreed like crazy. They inbreed and inbreed, and purge and purge, and in the end, they wind up with fertility problems or autoimmune diseases. The dogs aren’t shown. They are worked.

If dogs were like rats, and you could purge all the deleterious recessives, then you’d have a good case for inbreeding.

I re-read your original post. i think we agree that in-breeding is not good for the long term health of dogs over many generations. But you equate people that inbreed to fix traits in dog’s in order to use their brain and body in combination to complete a task, with people who inbreed to fix supeficial traits that are judged on a table by a man in a tuxedo.

Like it or not, line breeding is going to happen in most corners of the dog world, until a lot of people decide to breed, feed, house and train dogs for the purpose of diversifying gene pools.

I’ll take the retired trial collie with a high COI and you take the Peke with a high COI and we’ll compare vet bills in four years.

Bill–the reason you are inbreeding makes absolutely no difference. High COI is high COI. Pekingese will be brachycephalic no matter whether the COI is 2% or 20% for an individual dog.

Considering how high a percentage of Border Collies (many from “working” lines) seem to have hip problems and seizure disorders, I am not sure I’d be all that excited to take a retired herding dog with high COI over, say, a retired conformation Whippet or retired racing Greyhound. Betting the sighthounds would be healthier in the long run.

Teeth and gum problems (some dogs have problems even on a raw diet), arthritis due to wear/injuries, and cancer. Osteosarcoma is a biggie in ex-racers. I owned six of them; one died at twelve, one made it to thirteen, the rest died before age ten. Five from cancer (four osteosarcoma) and one arterial aneurysm. One of the osteosarcoma dogs lived for eleven months after diagnosis, the rest made it maybe three months. If you want an ex-racer you should be prepared to chop off a leg and still lose the dog in a few months.

Most of mine, and most of the ones I fostered, were dumb as rocks. Nothing against dumb dogs, but if you are used to ‘sighthound’ as defined by Salukis and Afghans, ex-racers are not very sighthoundy except in appearance. I have no experience with AKC or mixed Greys.

Interesting! My main experience with sighthounds has been with Whippets and IGs (AKC and rescues) and I am extremely impressed with their brains. They learn differently than my Shelties, but I almost like it better (they don’t like drilling, and *I* don’t like drilling, so our teaching and learning styles match).

I agree and am sad at how little genetic diversity there actually is in isds collies – but there is one saving grace I hope – there are many working border collies here on farms who are not registered with anyone, they are not trialed, they are only bred to work – hopefully there will be a little more diversity there, although I think there are few farmers left who would be adding other dogs to their collie mix simply because the collies do the job they are needed for so well

I hope that trial herding dogs and line-bred pointing dogs will soon be in as good a shape as show-bred Shar-Peis. I can’t remember: Which is more preferred at shows, dogs with a nice, natural entropion infection, or ones where the eyelid has been surgically “tacked”?

Oh I agree that its conformation. Is their any other type of breeding for Shar-Pei’s? (i sure hope not anymore, as they are fighting dogs).

If commonplace, selecting trial dogs for hip displasia is terrible. I doubt it’s rampant, because the dog that you spend thousands of hours and dollars on falls apart in its prime.

Would you have us believe that an average 10 yr old Peke, or English Bulldog or Cavalier, or Shar Pei that hasnt had her eyes corrected is as comfortable resting or taking a walk on a hot day as a tightly line-bred (in-bred) retired field trial dog? Obvoulsly there’s no way to measure/quantify it, but one group is breeding dogs that often suffer due to design, and the other is breeding dogs that generally can move, breathe, and don’t bite. One is better than the other and its not the equivalent of dog bigotry to say so.

Neither group is helping genetic diversity, but one group is far, far worse than the other.

Not so much messed up in the head as a different mindset than most breeds developed in the West. The ones brought in originally had what was likely the normal temperament for a dog that was bred to work with a great deal of independence of people. That’s not ideal for a pet breed in the West so it’s been tempered a lot with selective breeding for a softer temperament. They’re never going to be a golden retriever, but the UK chows and shar-pei are generally good natured and happy to mingle with strange people and dogs.

They’re not and never have been widely and specifically bred as fighting dogs. Mostly that was just a sideline for their owners and the dogs often had to be drugged to get them to fight. They never were a pit dog and no match for a bull terrier. They were a general purpose peasant/farm dog used to reliably hunt vermin, sometimes even larger game, sometimes to herd livestock and as excellent guard dogs of property and what they consider their family be that human or animal.

I could say more about the breed I fell into owning, but I’m not the one on the defensive and indulging in a game of character assassinating a breed to try to (unsuccessfully) needle someone over the internet. Actually, the vast majority of shar-pei move very well and are active into old age (though I’m not saying they don’t have their health problems, sound movement ain’t one of them), don’t suffer from breathing problems as they’re skull is a normal length and I’ve never been bitten by the many that I have known well or in passing. You can pick and choose single breeds to castigate with stereotypes until you are blue in the face, but you’re just making yourself look like you’re swallowing sand. Many breeds bred for conformation are healthy, long lived and have no extremes in type. Picking on the ones that have and extrapolating that to all purebreds not bred to work is not doing anybody a service, let alone yourself. If you want to believe that inbred working dogs are somehow better than the less closely bred showdogs out there, fair enough. But your attitude is like saying you’re better than an armed robber because you’re just a cat burglar.

The only place where working dog trialists have any moral superiority over show people is that they don’t breed for exaggerated forms. They still however, are operating under the mindset that competition and breeding from an elite makes a population excellent. The only thing that makes a population excellent is to breed for excellence in the population, which is how dogs were bred for centuries until we started monkeying with them. The issue is what they are both doing to populations, and what sticks in my craw is that they claim for themselves moral superiority over the show people, when they really have none.

People are more resistant to criticisms of their group when those criticisms are made by an outgroup rather than an ingroup member, a phenomenon referred to as the intergroup sensitivity effect (ISE). The current study compared four competing models of how argument quality would moderate the ISE, with a view to establishing the complex interrelationships between source and message effects in group-directed criticism. Quality of the argument affected responses to ingroup critics, but not to outgroup critics. For outsiders who wish to promote positive change and reform in a group culture, this leads to a somewhat depressing conclusion: their message is likely to be rejected regardless of whether it is objectively ‘right’, well-considered, well-justified, or well-argued.

Gotta agree w/ that one…as much as I bemoan what has been done to my beloved Saints, I still bristle when others criticize them. (Of course, being a rational person, I realize where the response is coming from, and so choose not to go off in high dudgeon.)

Don’t shoot the messenger. My shar-pei have all been rescues or second hand. And as in all things, I would not castigate ALL breeders in each category. But if you feel like being offended go ahead, knock yourself out.

Doing a search recently for something ENTIRELY different, I came across a Border Collie message board. As I read it over, I realized that yes, the “working” Border Collie people have their heads at LEAST as deeply up their own rears as any Conformation breeder. I am sure many of you are aware of this, but not being part of the BC cult myself, I was not aware that apparently the ONLY dogs fit to be called Border Collies are dogs that are bred for USBCHA herding trials. Yup, not even ACTUAL FARM DOGS that do ACTUAL FARM WORK are considered “worthy.” I knew that Conformation BCs are referred to as “Barbie” collies, but did not know that they heap the same scorn on Agility and Flyball dogs, calling them “sporter” collies.

I so wanted to post something along the lines of “the only WORKING dog is a dog that’s WORKING. Dogs bred and trained for TRIALING are NOT working dogs. You are involved in a SPORT, not WORK.”

But I didn’t because I cannot imagine that hasn’t occurred to someone else in the past, and apparently that person didn’t change anyone’s mind either.

I left the site feeling a bit relieved that I have never had the urge to get a Border Collie (despite having Shelties and being involved in Agility and Flyball, the two dog sports where EVERYONE eventually gets a Border Collie–I got weird instead, and my 2nd breed is Italian Greyhounds).

I think the real shame of it is when people who love their chosen breeds choose to polarize and place themselves on a pedastal.

The fact is that there are extremes in the show world who care more for winning than for their dogs. These folks seek out the extremes that get them the win, generally at the expense of the more mundane traits that really make a good dog.

There are extremes in the performance world who care more for winning than they care for their dogs. They too seek out the extremes that get them the win, generally at the expense of the more mundale traits that really make a good dog.

I would hope that the rest of us, who love our dogs and for our breeds can find middle ground, adopt a sense of stewardship and help each other out. There is something to be learned in both worlds. In the end both cultures within the breed have more in common than either cares to admit. Both will dictate the future of their breeds.

As for finding information on health problems in the border collie, this may help. It’s a link to the OFA stats, hardly complete, but it does offer some idea of what’s going on with disease for which screening is available. You can also do a kennel name search on OFA and see who’s doing the screening. Usually it is a mix of performance and conformation people since neither stands to benefit from a sick dog: http://www.offa.org/stats.html#breed